The upgrading of natural gas, which is mainly composed of methane, to easily transportable valuable products (such as hydrocarbons, gasoline, methanol and dimethyl ether) is a predominant field of research for the XXI century. Indeed, oil resources cannot meet the exponentially increasing energetic requirements of the world. Moreover, this fossil energy leads to global warning due to CO2 generation during the chemical transformation. Many efforts are done in order to reduce CO2 formation but also to use it into chemical process (CO2-rich gas syntheses
Today, most of the carbonaceous gas-to-liquid (GTL) reactions are using syngas (H2/CO mixture) as reagent. This mixture is synthesized by the steam reforming of methane. However, the 3:1 H2/CO ratio obtained by this process is not well adapted to GTL technologies. One alternative process is the dry reforming of methane (DRM), which is both an industrial and academic challenge. It produces in a CO2-rich gas synthesis the “ideal” 1:1 CO/H2 for the gas-to-liquid technology. This unique process can indeed be potentially used in the Fischer-Tropsch process for long chain hydrocarbons and dimethyl ether syntheses.
However, this reaction is not easy to scale-up due to its high endothermicity requiring high temperature. It leads to the main limitation, which is the stability of the catalyst. The two main causes for deactivation are sintering (growth) of metallic nanoparticles and formation of carbonaceous deposits (coking), which both result in a loss of active sites. Amongst the d6, d7 and d8 transition metals that can efficiently catalyze DRM, nickel is considered the best candidate for industrial application, combining high activity and low cost. However, it is more sensitive to coking and sintering than noble metals. Thus, there is a need to address these and other needs.